Page:Morgan Philips Price - Siberia (1912).djvu/160

116 field in the early morning, driving his cart with two or three horses. He scratches his ground lazily all day, and if the weather is fine during spring sowing and autumn reaping he rests for the night in his little hut. But at other times of the year he leaves his land severely alone. No hoeing or weeding is done, and during the summer no one looks at or tends his patches of wheat or rye, for often he goes fishing or seeking for gold in the wild country along the frontier.

Now I came to an open forest glade surrounded by graceful birch and a few sombre pines. Everything here was wild and primitive, and nature was bursting through from underneath the superficial work of man. Down the glade might be seen little copses of willow and wild cherry, while in a marsh beyond stood a heron, statue-like, watching the fish in the stagnant pools. Nature was undergoing her first discipline. An old Siberian peasant was leisurely ploughing the rich black soil with the aid of a horse and an old-fashioned wooden plough. The worker did not seem surprised when I appeared from out of the forest glade and approached him. One would have thought that the apparition of a stranger clothed in a rough gaberdine, with a grisly beard on his chin and a knowledge of a Russian language which obviously betokened another nationality, would have disturbed his labours in this secluded forest glade. Perhaps he thought I was a Tartar or one of the nomad Finnish tribes which roamed the forest. "Your land is rich and gives much bread?" I asked. "Neechevo," was the reply, which is the usual blank expression signifying neither approval or disapproval. "Is this your land?"